February 24, 2021
By Audrey John
Health Alert Sierra Leone, a Civil Society Organization that seeks to promote effective governance and management of health care services as human right has unearthed burning issues in Bombali and Tonkolili districts respectively.
The findings were presented to stakeholders based on a monitoring conducted from December 2020 to February 2021. The monitoring focused specifically on the implementation of the health service delivery and resources provided both from government and transfers for the procurement and uptake on family planning commodities for adolescents youth, Malaria commodities immunization and Nutrition service for under-five children in four PHUs in each of the aforementioned districts.
The findings also captured specific issues contained in the 2019 to 2020 Auditor General’s report in which billions of Leones were alleged to have been missing.
The presentation was done in the presence of stakeholders that include District Medical Officers, Nurses, Chiefs Councilors, Chiefdom Administrator’s, Finance officers, CSOs at district level, pregnant women, lactating mothers and journalists.
Speaking at the stakeholders forum the Executive Director of Health Alert Sierra Leone Victor Lansana Koroma said that Sierra Leone has one of the highest maternal mortality rates globally, with incremental teenage pregnancies and adolescent death constituting nearly 25 percent of the total maternal deaths in the country.
He also informed stakeholders that more than half of all childhood deaths are preventable with access to key opportunities.
He also pointed out that there are a lot of persistent deficits in quality of care and efficiency of resources used in the health sector.
The Executive Director of Health Alert and his team noted that government should commit to improving the quality of effective RMNCAH service at all levels of service delivery. The stressed the need for provision of critical drug and logistics in enhancing the work at the sector.
The organization also highlighted that government should also cater to the infrastructural needs and a functioning emergency referral system manned by motivated and skilled staff for effective provision of RMNCAH services.
Presenting the findings, the Health Alert Program Manager Dalton John stated that during their monitoring, they noticed that drugs supply on a push system was still being used in the health facilities which he noted still poses a challenge.
He cited inadequate number of beds and the structure was small and not conducive for delivery.
Dalton showcased a video footage to stakeholders in which Nurses in charge informed Health Alert that most times they provided Electricity Distribution Service Authority top up for electricity supply at most PHUs.
He also informed stakeholders that most Peripheral Health Unit catchment areas are too big and it involves cost for hiring of bikes to go around doing routine health service delivery.
He also disclosed that there exists water crisis at all the PHUs they visited especially during the dry season. He also made mention of delayed supply of plumpeanuts at PHUs.
Another burning issues he also brought to the attention of the stakeholders was has to do with Nurses inability to conduct outreach because of inadequate mobility and most of the nurses complain bitterly that most of them are on not on pay roll. It was also observed that most PHUs have no refrigerators and therefore, nurses always travel to the next PHUs that have a refrigerator to collect vaccines.
He concluded by stating that most nurses complained that they had to use their monies to pay to collect vaccines for their PHUs just to deliver services.
At the end of a power point presentation by the Executive Director and his program manager, stakeholders were allowed to ask questions around issues affecting them while accessing health facilities in their respective PHUs.
Lactating mothers and pregnant women generally disclosed that when they visited the health facilities they are asked to pay for facilities that are supposed to be free.
While other set of stakeholders mentioned the negligent attitudes of some nurses contributing to great loss of lives in that part of the district.
In defense, the health practitioners stated that sometimes they too have challenges in receiving drugs from the central government.
